Chapter 21: The Snow Road

Lester walked me north, away from the fire, with his hand clamped on my arm.

He knew the timber better than any wolf in Ironwood, and he never once slowed.

Behind us, the sound of the fight dropped away, until all I could hear was our boots in the frozen leaves.

Behind my eyes, in the link, Aldric was shouting my name.

I shut it down to a thread.

If I let him feel everything I felt, he would come through the trees with the red on him.

Lester had a knife.

"Smart girl," Lester said, when I didn't scream. "You always were. I kept hoping you'd be stupid."

"Where are we going?"

"Somewhere I've been before," he said.

The ridge came up out of the dark, and the flat place beside the boulder opened between the trees.

I knew it, because my father had written it down.

"Here," Lester said, and let go.

I stood on the spot where my father had found me, and shivered.

He stepped back and drew the knife.

"Sixteen years ago, I stood here with a blanket in my arms and I couldn't do it," he said.

"Do it?"

"A baby, nine days old, and my hands wouldn't close. Do you know how many times I've gone over that?"

"You could have thrown me in a river," I said.

"I could have."

"You could have left me in the road where a truck would find me."

"I thought of everything," Lester said.

"But you laid me down at the fence of a man you knew would pick me up."

His face worked.

"Glenn never could pass a lost thing," he said at last. "I knew that."

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